Fall is here, hiking before the rains come

So it's autumn and I guess I have time to blog. At least my thoughts are turned more that way. I went for a hike yesterday in Marin past a couple lakes. Bon tempe, Alpine and from a distance Lagunitas. We were supposed to go past lagunitas as well, but my trail notes were not very clear and we went down the wrong way.

But we saw lots of interesting things including this egret, even saw it catch and swallow a fish. I tried to get a video of that but it all happened too fast.


Some honeysuckle berries (red).

And some madrone berries (orange). Madrones have to be one of my favorite trees. Their beautiful, smooth, cinnamon-colored bark and bright green, shiny foliage make them just pop out of the forest.


As you can see from the water level of the lake in this first pic above and the second pic of our hills covered in brown, dried grass, here in California we are desperate for some rain. We had an OK, but intermittent winter and a hot summer, and so now my garden is crying out for water. I could claim tough love has prevented me from watering my mixed native and drought-tolerant front yard, but it's mostly been due to laziness and the lack of a spigot out there.

Luckily for my plants, and my guilt complex, a serious storm has been forecast for Monday night/Tuesday. So Friday and today were a mad dash to get some winter crops in the back and to move and plant a bunch of things in the front. More on that in my next blog post I think.